Geek Gazette Autumn 2016

Geek Gazette 1

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AUTUMN ’16

cover story: locked in time

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Association For Computing Machinery Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee

An Anime’s Time Page 06

Soft Robotics Page 26

In Coversation with Dr. Gangopadhyay Page 28

ISSUE 16

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CONTENTS An Anime’s Time

The Secret World of Metaphors

A Talk With Kartik Patel

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Bartering Code

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Potboiler Plunders

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Grappling with Truth

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In The Heart of a Relativist

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The Rise of E-Sports

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The Relief of Inconsequence

Locked in Time

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Into a Limbo with Albert

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Translating Languages

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fiction:

MÖbius trip

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05 LOOMING HORIZON

The latent persona

GEEk SPEAK As Editors of the magazine, we take it upon ourselves to spread ideas that intellectually stimulate our readers. Like every semester, we spent most of our weekends on hours of countless discussions, debates, and arguments for something more than just articles- something that we believe can help us grow intellectually. What started off as meetings revolving around immortality, slowly evolved into a theme we feel our readers will find immense joy delving into- Time.

Just like every other issue, we have aimed at maintaining diversity among the articles. Our Big Story, Soft Robotics, talks about the future of the field of robotics and the way it can change our lives.

The article on the psychology of humans, the Latent Persona, gives an insight into the lives of introverts and extroverts. And with the transition of video games into the million dollar business of Esports, we feel that the recognition for the same is definitely needed.

For the Professor interview, we had the pleasure of catching up with Prof. Sugata Gangopadhyay, an Associate Professor of the Computer Science Department and a researcher in cryptography.

He received the outstanding teacher award for this year from the faculty in the CSE department. As for the student interview, it was the core guy of ECE, Kartik Patel, who spent a few hours with us talking about his passion for electronics and shedding some light on the research culture here at IITR. We’ve tried something different with our puzzle corner this time, hoping that a crossword would make some of the readers feel nostalgic. And as far as our beloved Daisy Bell is concerned, all we can say is that we love cats.

With a cover story based on the intriguing concept of messages stored into the future, an anime giving its own perception of the functioning of time and a fictional story based on the ever geeky idea of time travel, we believe that we would be able to usher you through the discussions we had on time.

We can go on and on on how much fun we’ve had in bringing out this issue, but we will conclude by saying that there is enough content to connect to the geek in you. Peace. �acebook.com/geekgazette geekgazette.o�g

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THE LATENT

PERSONA t is a man’s personality which determines his behavioral traits and social persona. This personality itself, though, has multiple dimensions. A person could be selfish and yet he could be selfless. He could be a cruel Mr. Hyde and yet he could be a kind Mr. Jekyll. While such cases of split personality are quite rare, there are other attributes of personality which can slide over an entire range of spectrum for even a single individual. One such example is the trait of introversion, extroversion and all that lies in between.

The words “introversion” and “extroversion” were coined by Carl Jung in 1921 in his work Psychologische Typen. Introversion is the trait of feeling more comfortable and energized by one’s inner world. Given a choice between books and a cocktail party, an introvert would choose books 9 out of 10 times. Quite sadly for the introverts, mad psychopaths like Jack the ripper and Adolf Hitler misuse the power of solitude to spread fear and destruction. This leads to our collective fear for solitude. Ironically, the psychotic loner is externally focused. He doesn’t enjoy the solitude the way an introvert does. In fact, introverts are not at all antisocial, cynical or reclusive. It's just that they get droopy in social gatherings pretty soon.

Extroverts, on the other hand, tend to be enthusiastic, talkative, assertive, and gregarious.

They crave newness and are easily bored. They are forced to constantly search for better ways to simulate the process or experience. This could lead to sparks of innovation which have led to the success of many startups and the invention of new products. This thought process that "there has to be a better way" can prove to be a beneficial perspective.

Neuroscientific studies conducted on these traits over the years show that the brains of introverts and extroverts are different. According to Hans Eysenck, a German psychologist, the behaviors

of introverts and extroverts are due to differences in cortical arousal, i.e., the speed and amount of the brain's activity. Compared to extroverts, introverts have naturally high cortical arousal. This essentially means that when put in an environment with a lot of stimulation, such as a loud restaurant, introverts will quickly become overwhelmed. Therefore, introverts tend to avoid such active environments. Extroverts, on the other hand, are only minimally aroused, so they seek out highly stimulating environments to augment their arousal levels.

To measure the psychological preferences in people, and how they perceive the world and make decisions, a test called Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was developed. It categorizes people into 16 different types of personalities.

Though accused of often being altered by the individual’s mood, the MBTI is in line with what is agreed upon by many psychologists; it suggests that extroverts and introverts are just the two ends of the extroversion spectrum. Many people struggle with answering the question of whether they are introverts or extroverts. Carl Jung himself felt that none of us are completely under the shadow of introversion or extroversion. Like a bell curve, most humans generally fall in the middle of the spectrum. This middle of the continuum is the place where “ambiverts” reside. Ambiverts can exist in a state of constant social dichotomy. They possess a continuous approach towards situations of life which is far more adaptable than the discrete way of perceptions of things by introverts and extroverts. They are not faced with stagnation of personality, and can instead make an apt transition between introversion and extroversion according to the need of the moment. They are inherently free to be whatever they want to be.

Despite this, why is “ambivert” such an alien term, which still solicits a red underline when automatic spell checking is enabled in digital editors?

“Carl Jung himself felt that none of us are completely under the shadow of introversion or extroversion.”

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Geek Gazette

An anime’s Time T

he possibility of time travel has always fascinated us. Just the prospect of going back to the past or going forward into the future gets us thinking about all the amazing things we could do. We could prevent wars from breaking out, stop Nathuram Godse from killing Gandhi, stop the assassination of Lincoln or on a less drastic note, rectify those decisions we made in the past that make us cringe when we think about them today. If we dared to, we could even see our future selves but that is, though highly alluring, probably too scary.

There are various movies and TV shows related to time travel that people love just because the mere concept of time travel is intriguing, if not unique. Classics include the novel The Time Machine, Men In Black 3, the Doctor Who TV series and many others. Our intuition suggests that there is a straight line that connects the past to the future and we travel only along that line.

What if that is not true? What if our concept of time is flawed? This line of reasoning can be explored with the anime Steins;Gate.

Steins;Gate isn’t just another anime about time travel. It has its own concept of time and how time travel would affect the world. It suggests that there exists a collection of parallel lines, called world lines, which connects the past to the future. Each of these world lines may have one, two, or a hundred events that do not occur in other world lines. World lines should not be linked with the concept of parallel worlds, since at any point in time only one world line is active and the rest just exist simultaneously as possible worlds. Like a changing switch, one world line is “on” while the other possible world lines are “off”.

The anime’s fascinating concept of time drives the phenomenon of time travel in a very unique

Autumn 2016 direction. If someone were to go back to a specific point in time and kill a person ‘A’, the universe would shift to a world line where he died at that particular point in time. So, the original world line where ‘A’ doesn’t die becomes inactive and the one where he does, becomes active. When a world line shift occurs, people’s memories change accordingly. The memories of a world in which ‘A’ is still alive are overwritten with memories of a world where he died but the memories and the timeline before his death remains the same in both the world lines.

The entire collection of world lines can be divided into different sets of world lines called Attractor Fields. The concept of Attractor Fields can be better understood if it is imagined as a rope that has several strands. Each strand is slightly different but in the end, the strands are a part of the same structure and yield the same result.

If a world line is contained within a certain Attractor Field, it will always converge to the same result as the other world lines within that particular Field. For example, suppose the convergence point of a certain Attractor Field is the death of person ‘A’. This means that he will die if the world line that is active lies within that particular Attractor Field. Of course, the way he dies may be different in each world line present in that field. It does not matter whether he is killed, gets in an accident or dies of a heart attack, but the world lines will continue to converge to his death as long as the active world line remains within the same attractor field. It is like the entire universe is conspiring against him!

The only way he can save himself or be saved by someone is by shifting to a world line out of the range of that Attractor Field. The Divergence Number is very crucial to determining the range of an Attractor Field. It is a relative percentage that tells us how much we have deviated from the original world line once a shift has occurred.

Suppose the central world line of an Attractor Field is considered as the reference world line that is, its Divergence Number is 0.000000 and that of the outermost world line is 0.999999.

Then, as soon as the universe is shifted to a world line where the Number is 1.000000, it will no longer converge to the same incident since this world line will be in a different Attractor Field and as a result ‘A’ will not die. The

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magnitude of the Divergence Number depends on the extent of the difference between the world lines that are being compared. If the active world line lies deep inside the Field, and the Divergence Number of the outermost world line with respect to the active one will be high.

There are two methods that can be followed to avoid World Line Convergence. The premiere idea is to change world lines step-by-step by making small changes and the other idea is to make a very drastic change in the past and jump world lines in one go. However, both these methods have their own setbacks. Since memories are overwritten after a person leaps through time, after doing so the time traveler will have forgotten about the previous world line and hence, forgotten about the fact that he actually changed world lines.

This could present a problem when trying to switch to a different Attractor Field by changing world lines step-by-step because he will forget about the reason he changed world lines.

According to the anime, there could exist people who have the ability to retain their memories from previous world lines even after shifting.

This ability is dubbed as “Reading Steiner” by the protagonist.

This theory is the basis of the entire anime and, if we’d like to consider the possibility, the basis of our universe. Although it may sound a little far-fetched, we cannot help but admit it would be really cool if it were true. The problem lies in the fact that, according to the theory, until and unless we can travel back in time and alter the past, our idea and the anime’s idea will never diverge. We will never be able to distinguish between the two theories. So just in case this anime has the right concept, let us all cross our fingers and hope that the Attractor Field we are in does not converge to our death very soon. Let us hope that we are not person ‘A’.

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Geek Gazette

The Secret world of

METAPHORS “The magic of metaphors is in that they equate and exchange properties of two unrelated ideas or objects but reveal an underlying fundamental truth.”

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f the power of words is in their ability to surface hidden emotions and help us face them, then there can be no greater devices for unfolding the innermost desires and secrets than metaphors. There are things we don’t speak of on usual cheerless afternoons, meandering swiftly through the same old routine of life. We wear a cloak of equanimity with friends and strangers alike even when things don’t seem right until the heart feels tired and heavy. Certain things don’t occur to us in a setting meant for a nine-to-five day-job or for drudging in thick crowds. We button ourselves into our lives and work and that’s how most our days pass. At times, however, we fall out of that balanced state of mind.

When we read or see something unusual, those hidden emotions escape. This makes us uncomfortable because our mind needs time to comprehend the anomaly. When we watch a movie, we feel instantly connected to the story even if it’s purely fictional such as Avatar or E.T because the visuals are handed to us on a platter.

The anomalies exist but do not beggar the mind to struggle and comprehend them. In literature, however, words are the only form of information. We create the visuals ourselves and maintain a constant commentary as we read. And when we come across something unusual, we must think metaphorically and accept an

interpretation to be able to proceed. Thus, we vacillate between the ideal and the real, the obvious and the metaphorical, the known and the unknown. Since all of us are used to thinking in images we form channels that link our ideas to real objects and compel us to think beyond what science permits. Metaphors have a secret world of their own where the things we see everyday shed their usual roles and assume entirely different identities. Simply put, metaphors help escape repetition.

The magic of metaphors is in that they equate and exchange properties of two unrelated ideas or objects but reveal an underlying fundamental truth. They may be right or wrong but their state of coherence or incoherence with the information we receive from our physical senses only enhances their effect. Metaphors are, therefore, conceptual in nature and our concepts in life are based on our observations. They can be perceived synesthetically. Pharrell Williams sings, “Like a hot-air balloon I could go to space”, because being happy feels like flying.

Queen, on the other hand, expresses sadness with the words, “Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality”, because being unhappy pulls us down. Thus, HAPPY is UP and SAD is DOWN. From the simplest of ideas to the most obscure ones, our experiences are often expressed in metaphorical terms. Time, for instance, is ‘a

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moving object’ and time is ‘money’; we wait for the right person all our life, we spend time thinking about them and time alone can bring them to us.

I have waited a lifetime, spent my time so foolishly But now that I found you, together we'll make history Feels like the First Time -Foreigner

When we talk about something abstract, the use of metaphors is almost inevitable. There is, however, an emotion that can’t be pinned to synesthetic concepts. It’s the emotion we don’t associate with any particular sense but it affects all senses. It is wholly metaphorical because we have no other way of comprehending it. Almost any metaphor could be used to define it, yet it adds up to be greater than all of them put together- a gestalt that keeps growing. It’s both UP and DOWN, HOT and COLD, liberating and enslaving. That emotion is love.

Falling in love is like holding a flashlight in the darkest cavern only to realize there is nothing below your feet. It’s like “Driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street” (Taylor Swift- Red) because no matter how ephemeral it is, you experience the thrill of chasing something extremely beautiful that will change your life.

Falling in love is falling for someone again and again. It is also in the idea of being eternal and beyond our world; when you know it’ll last it doesn’t change your life, it becomes your life. In his poem Affection is Not Love, Sir Walter Raleigh points out that just as a seed that doesn’t grow and a child that dies in the womb, such is the fate of an instant whim or passion. He says, “Desire attained is not desire, But as the cinders of the fire”, thereby distinguishing between infatuation (something that will burn to ashes) and love. It is in the quintessential reference to the Sun, the Moon, the Stars and what you carry in your Heart as explained by E. E. Cummings. It is also in the haunting of an unattained sexual desire put across in The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock at the very beginning of the poem: Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; -T. S. Eliot

These words form the image of a quiet romantic evening date which is immediately, almost

ruthlessly, destroyed and replaced with the bizarre image of a hospital room. Love is in the wistful longing for someone you may never be with as symbolized by the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock that Gatsby is always looking at.

Love is metaphysical gravity, a journey, a game, a battlefield. It is madness, magic, war. There is absolutely no limit to the ways in which metaphors can be used to explain love and be interpreted by us. Thousands of them exist and thousands more will be created. Take this for example: O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head As is a winged messenger of heaven -Romeo and Juliet, Act 2- Scene 2

As commonplace as the use of ‘angel’ to describe Juliet might feel today, it wasn’t at the time Shakespeare wrote the play. No one before him felt that a beautiful girl or someone you love could be called an ‘angel’. The use of other metaphors such as, “Juliet is the Sun”, exploited the already popular universal themes of love thus making it simple yet profound and timeless. The first metaphor feels out of place and strange, the second feels a perfect fit but both of them depict the enormous amount of love that Romeo had for her.

The more we think about them, the more ubiquitous they prove to be. Theirs is a world where even ‘nothing’ has endless meanings except nothing. And if I were to leave you with one last metaphor, as the greatest testament to the power of metaphors, that in my opinion explains our world better than science and proofs and mathematics, it would be this: All the world’s a stage And all men and women merely players -As You Like It, Act 2- Scene

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Geek Gazette

A TALK WITH Kartik patel ECE, IV year While many in the campus are gearing up for the coveted placement season yearning to get their dream jobs, there are a few who are gearing up for a career in research and academia. Geek Gazette recently caught up with Kartik Patel, who is one such person, looking forward to explore the challenging field of Electronics and Communication Engineering. Here’s what he had to say.

GG: Tell us about your four years of experience at IITR. KP: My first year was full of new experiences and very exciting. The second year was challenging as I had to make important decisions about my career, such as whether to pursue core electronics or try my hand at coding. The third year was actually a blend of different feelings. On one hand, I was enthusiastically trying to make the most out the opportunities that I had here at IITR, while on the other hand, I was looking for a good research internship which was a challenging experience. As far as the fourth year is considered, everything seems normal until now and I am looking forward to what lies ahead.

GG: You have a deep interest in your branch ECE. What in Electronics and Communication excites you?

KP: Mathematics. Actually, it is the intuition behind the mathematics which is used in ECE that excites me.

GG: If your interest lies in Mathematics then why did you not consider pure mathematics as the subject of your study instead of ECE? KP: I took a course on Advanced Engineering Mathematics which, though isn’t pure mathematics but included topics such as complex analysis, wasn’t very exciting for me. I like the intuition behind the mathematics that is used in ECE and always try to find the practical implications of a mathematical model once I have understood the idea. I believe that this is something that would not be possible with rigorous pure mathematics.

GG: What is your particular area of interest or study?

KP: My interest lies in wireless communication.

Broadly speaking, any communication system consists of three sections: electronics, high-frequency electronics, and the RF level blocks. So, the mathematical model that explain the working of these different sections is something that I am interested in.

GG: Does your research aim to improve the mathematical structure of communication without physically changing the circuit so that the level or experience of communication is enhanced even if the electronics remains the same?

KP: Not exactly. That depends on the hardware.

There are some hardware that allow us to do that and there are others that don’t. To understand this, we can consider the different generations of wireless telephone technology. For shifting from 3G to 4G, hardware changes are required. This was not the case when we made a shift from 2G to 2.5G, where no significant hardware changes are required.

GG: When designing the mathematical structure for communication, do you care whether the corresponding electronic circuit is actually feasible or not? Or do you do it for mathematical beauty?

KP: It is considered in terms of complexity of calculations. Usually, we don’t think about how to implement the equation but we do think about how much time and space complexity is feasible for the construction.

Autumn 2016 GG: Can you tell us something about your recent research work?

KP: I spent the last summer at IISc working on a project whose aim was to build a sensor network using the Bluetooth low-energy protocol. My work there involved building a simulator for this protocol. It was a first of its kind simulator that was built with the general network simulator as its base.

Apart from that, in my second year, I did a project on cognitive radio. The aim of this project was to detect unused communication channels (such as the one used for now-obsolete analog televisions) and use this spectrum to decrease the traffic in other spectrums which have a lot of congestion. I mostly worked on determining whether a channel is available or not, based on energy considerations and statistical analysis.

GG: You have spent your last summer at IISc. How do you find the electronics culture at IISc different from IIT- R? KP: The two main points of difference that I feel are research and the dynamism of students. Most of the people there are involved in research, which I don’t feel is the case here. The root cause for this is the perception that people have about our institute. The people who are really into research have colleges like IISc as their first preference while IIT-R ranks quite low on that list.

GG: As students, what are we not doing correctly that is causing such less research in the institute?

KP: The basic problem with students here is that they are not looking beyond what they are seeing currently. The career decisions that students take here is greatly influenced by what others are doing. These decisions are also fairly affected by the packages and stipend associated with the placements and internships respectively. This is actually limiting the possibilities.

GG: What is your take on teaching and academics at IIT- R? KP: The one thing that I have noticed here is that the classes are completely passive, that is, the professors keep speaking and the students are just listening. I attended some classes at IISc and there, before entering the class, the faculty was enthused about what the students would be asking him. This does not happen here at IIT-R. Once the students here are motivated enough, the faculty will automatically feel the need to be

11 updated with all the recent development in their departments and works of the other departments as well. Once that takes place, the level of education that is being provided here will automatically improve and become comparable to the best institutes in India and the world. And this initiative can only be taken from the students’ side.

GG: A lot of seminars, colloquia and open discussions on scientific papers happen at colleges like IISc but it is not the case here. What do you think is the reason for that?

KP: As far as I think, the problem lies in the students. Calling a decorated scholar to deliver a speech which only a handful of students attend doesn’t make much sense to me. Another thing to be considered is that the visiting faculties come to any college to build academic relations with the faculties of that college. This is a good enough reason for someone to visit a college such as IISc while this might not be the case for our college. Location is also a very important factor but there is hardly anything that we can do about it.

GG: It is observed that the most of the freshers who enter the college are enthusiastic about exploring different fields and pursuing one of their choices. But in the later years of their college, most of them run after better packages despite it being in a field that they are not interested in. What would be your advice for those who want to work in their field of interest?

KP: Actually my suggestion would be for the seniors instead of the freshers. Any senior who is working in his field of interest must act as a role model for the freshers who have similar interests. Also, the seniors must be approachable for the freshers so that they can have their doubts and problems sorted. For freshers, I would say that they must not remain dependent on the institute for motivation. They can derive the necessary motivation to stick to their field of interest from themselves and their seniors.

GG: Thanks a lot Kartik for sharing your views with us.

looming horizon

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n 1916, a man in his forties was devastated from the misery he had been witnessing for weeks. He and his friends were dying- some of them slowly and the rest rapidly- some of them due to cold weather of the foreign land and the others due to cold violence spread all around.

Perhaps it is true that one is the most alive when one is in pain. The man came up with something during those days of extreme misery that Einstein would later respond to with words: 'I had not expected that one could formulate the exact solution of the problem in such a simple way.'

The man was Karl Schwarzschild and had found out exact solutions to Einstein Equations for a spherically symmetric and steady mass distribution. The importance of the discovery was at least twofold: It demonstrated that Einstein Equations, however nonlinear and coupled they might be, can be exactly solved. On the other hand, the solutions were important to astrophysics as a tremendous fraction of astrophysical objects could be analysed with them.

In addition to the above, Schwarzschild solutions resurrected an old demon that was first summoned by the geologist John Michell back in 1783 as 'Dark Star'- a star so dense that even light can't escape. The resurrection had modified 'Dark Star' and had added even stranger and

scarier features to it. Due to the Stockholm syndrome that a scientist must have regarding the problems that occupy his/her life, today, we know 'Dark Star' with a rather beloved name 'Black Hole'.

Although Black Holes are arguably the most confusing (and yet the simplest!) objects of the entire universe, the way they emerge from Schwarzschild solutions is quite comprehensible.

In order to demonstrate what Schwarzschild solutions have to offer, General Relativity needs to be touched upon. After all, they are solutions to Einstein Equations- the equations that describe General Relativistic space, time, and gravity.

If the general principle of relativity is true then one of the many things that become essential to be realized is that the construct of space and time as two separate entities break down and a rather unifying concept of spacetime emerges.

One part of spacetime can be perceived as Space

by Alice whereas the same chunk of it can be perceived as Time by Bob and none of them are incorrect! Although each of them is equally legit, Physics must remain the same. This, probably, suggests the existence of a better way of representing that piece of spacetime- such a way of identifying spacetime pieces that every observer can agree upon that identification.

Indeed, there exists such an identification and is

Autumn 2016

If one knows how to obtain the interval between two events from the coordinate observations of an observer then one knows everything there is to be known about the spacetime. Einstein Equations implicitly carry the recipe for cooking up the interval in a given setup of mass distribution. If one solves them then one will get the explicit method of evaluating the interval.

This is precisely what Schwarzschild did and thus Schwarzschild solutions simply constitute the method of obtaining the interval from coordinate observations in around a spherically symmetric and steady mass distribution.

Although one can bag a crude intuition about the working of Schwarzschild solutions without explicitly using equations, the real beauty lies in the rigor of Mathematics! According to Schwarzschild solution, at a distance r from the center of a sphere of mass M, the interval is evaluated by the formula

d , the interval, physically represents the time elapsed on the clock of a particle connecting the two events (i.e., going from one event to the other) of spacetime between which the interval is being evaluated.

2

If d > 0 then the interval is called timelike. If 2 d < 0 then the interval is called spacelike.

Along the same lines, the coordinates with the same sign of their coefficient as that of the timelike and spacelike intervals can be identified as the timelike and spacelike coordinates respectively. With this knowledge, one can see that sufficiently far away from the center of a mass, dt really act as a timelike coordinate and dr as a spacelike. But it is distinctly apparent that the signs of the coefficients of dt2 and dr2 flip as one crosses r=2GM. This boundary, r=2GM, is called the horizon.This means that inside the horizon, the radial coordinate starts acting as the timelike coordinate and the time coordinate starts acting as the spacelike coordinate!

This makes the radial movement inside the horizon behave as the movement in time. Time flows along the radius pointing towards the center once we cross and step inside the horizon.

Thus, it is inevitable to hit the center once we cross the horizon, just like it is inevitable to hit the tomorrow for us. This is the emergence of

Black Holes from the Schwarzschild solutions.

One should note that the Schwarzschild solutions are valid only outside the mass distribution- making the existence of a horizon non trivial. The horizon will exist only if the mass is dense enough; thus, forming a Black Hole.

Having pondered upon this essential feature of Black Holes, it should be emphasized that since its modern birth in 1916 from Schwarzschild solutions, Black Holes have been entangled with almost every interesting fundamental question of Physics.

First of all, we can notice two singularities lurking around Schwarzschild solutions. There is a singularity appearing at r=2GM- but it is not a genuine physical singularity- we can get rid of it.

On the other hand, the singularity at r=0 appears to be a genuine physical singularity and we don’t know what it means. We know for sure that General Relativity, in its present form, is not sufficient to describe the center of the Black Hole as it is not a quantum theory. But apart from understanding the center explicitly, there have been a large number of other paradoxes as well that we don’t really understand. From Hawking Radiation and Information Paradox to the Holographic Principle- we have been indulged in beautiful thought experiments with Black Holes and yet, no one has really been able to understand them!

Lately, in 2012, with the insightful paper proposing a completely outlandish idea called Black Hole Firewall, Polchinski et al have instituted a radically new paradox for the Black Hole thinkers. In 2013, Maldacena and Susskind came up with the ambitious “ER=EPR” conjecture which gives a way to resolve the firewall paradox. It conjectures a connection between wormholes (Einstein-Rosen bridges of classical General Relativity) and quantum entanglement. A series of insightful papers by Suvrat Raju et al between 2013 and 2016 constitute another approach to the resolution of the firewall paradox. These papers suggest that there is no distinct inside to the Black Hole event horizon! With all these mind dazzling ideas being put forward, it seems almost obvious that Black Holes have been hiding the next big revolution of Theoretical Physics inside their mysterious interior- or may be at the surface!

“I had not expected that one could formulate the exact solution of the problem in such a simple way.”

called the spacetime interval or simply the interval.

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Geek Gazette

T

he worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest encyclopedia has over 40 million articles in over 293 languages.

Cumulatively, the articles consist of 27 billion words. Yet, not a single word has been paid for.

The encyclopedia is free for anyone to use, edit, copy and distribute.

Almost every server and supercomputer in the world runs on an operating system that is available to everyone for free. All the 15 million lines of its code has been written by developers for free. And unlike Windows or the Mac OS, Linux has made its source code visible to the world. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re welcome, in fact encouraged, to view it, tinker with it, modify it and if possible, even enhance and improve it.

bartering code

Open Source and Free Software contributions may seem extremely counter intuitive at first.

Why do tens of thousands of people collaborate together on a project that they make absolutely no money out of? A majority of tech giants build their products on open source software and in turn, make billions of dollars out of it. The contributor however, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t entitled to a single cent out of that revenue. Why, then, would someone spend their valuable time contributing to a free project when they could invest those same skills in a job that actually pays in a more conventional sense?

In the early 2000s, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger decided to embark upon creating an encyclopedia that would be free for everyone to read. They called it Nupedia. And in its early days, Nupedia articles went through an extremely strict evaluation process before being published on the web. This process, though it ensured quality, restricted the rate at which the project could grow. This meant that it could never reach the size and significance that an encyclopedia like Britannica commanded, owing to its two centuries headstart.

In a desperate attempt to increase growth, Wales and Sanger decided to do something that would have considered insanity back then. They decided to convert their project into a wiki and call it Wikipedia. This meant that everyone with an internet connection could access their encyclopedia, edit existing articles and create new articles without even having to log in.

Intuition might suggest that this kind of a model could never produce a reliable source of

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15

knowledge. After all, the internet is brimming with trolls. Anyone could access an article and add objectionable, untrue material just for the heck of it.

But Wikipedia has proved all intuitions wrong. It has stood the test of time. Almost every person online has used it for multiple purposes.. Even the greatest academics and researchers claim that although they don’t use it for citations, they do refer to it to know more about a certain topic.

The success of Wikipedia proves one of open source and wiki’s core philosophy. It is that the innate nature of humans to share knowledge and extract a sense of satisfaction from the good that it does. When you put a project out to the public and tell them they can do anything they want with it, they start treating it as their own. And one does not mess with his own belongings. This belongingness and sense of ownership has allowed Wikipedia to thrive. Wikipedia’s community treats its encyclopedia as its own and spends a huge amount of time expanding it, protecting it from vandals and ensuring high quality.

Unlike Wikipedia, the majority of open source projects involve a huge amount of code. And anyone who’s ever written code knows the kind of bugs and errors that can creep in even in the most well maintained of projects.

Interestingly, bugs happen to be one of the primary reasons people start contributing to open source. It is the desire to fix software that they love to use and the liberty that they can.

The first contribution is always a euphoric moment. Most people do not look back after that.

They start contributing in every way possible, improving the overall quality of the project. Like the Wikipedians, they begin treating the project as their own.

Philanthropy aside, there are a lot of practical reasons to contribute to open source. A majority of software employers greatly value open source contributions. The GitHub profile is become increasingly more relevant and important in the resume.

Contributing to open source also gives you a valuable amount of practical skills. There is a huge difference between a coding project for a

programming course and commercial software.

A majority of college students treat open source as the bridge between personal and professional development. Unemployed students also tend to be one of the largest communities contributing to free projects.

As mentioned before, tech giants such as Google and Facebook base their products on open sourced technologies. Facebook is built on PHP and MySQL. Google incorporates huge doses of C++, Python, and Javascript. While it may seem unfair that they make money out of your hard work, they too have given back to the community. They have made significant contributions to open source to maintain balance. Google has open sourced its Android platform and given birth to a number of libraries and frameworks such as AngularJS. Facebook has given the community, Hadoop and ReactJS. But principally practical reasons for contributing may never overshadow the victory of human nature. And although there have been vandals and trolls that have tried to bring down these projects, the efforts of the community have ensured little to no damage. This was possible only because the amount of good material coming in was magnitudes greater than the vandalism.

Eric Raymond, in his book ‘The Catherdral and The Bazaar’, likened open source and closed source projects to the bazaar and the cathedral respectively. The cathedral is an extremely organized place with a few people deciding the rules and regulations. The bazaar, in stark contrast, is an open-to-all place where you can buy and sell every imaginable goods and service.

It lacks the order of the cathedral. Yet, in spite of all its chaos, the bazaar works. It’s unsaid rules of trust ensure its functioning.

16

GeekGazette

grappling with

truth T

he news went something like this- Another IIT student bags a package of two crores at a leading multinational firm; swaying more and more young and hopeful minds to prepare for the Joint Entrance Exams. A lot of people joined coaching institutes for the preparation, believing that they, too, would get a package of two crores in some multinational company once they were through. The bubble burst when after years of hard work and a decent rank they got into an IIT only to realise what a hoax that news was. They get placed with a modest salary during the final year of college and somewhere in those four years of engineering, most of them started believing that they didn't get into an IIT for a huge package, rather they were indeed interested in science and technology.

So, why was there a change in their perspective?

According to the theory of cognitive dissonance, humans tend to reduce psychological inconsistencies internally. People initially believed that if they prepared for JEE and got into the IITs, they would get a grand package of two or three crores but once they are there, they realise that it was a myth. They initially had a belief and then they were presented with a fact contradicting that belief. Therefore, they try to rationalise this by convincing themselves that they never got into the IITs for money in the first

place. Instead, they were genuinely interested in their fields, thus eliminating the conflicts in their thoughts. Cognitive dissonance is defined as the tense feeling of having the combined presence of two contradicting core beliefs. The greater this feeling of incoherence, the greater is the desire to reduce it. It is one of those conflicts of interests that occurs in our daily lives. Though not everyone faces cognitive dissonance to the same extent, it tends to occur more with the people who have a higher need for consistency in their lives.

The world we live in is full of people who believe that they are morally correct, and to encapsulate this figment of human nature, humans came up with the concept of Cognitive Dissonance. In general, no one accepts that they are 'fundamentally' wrong, and yet we see that in this world of 'all good people', crime is constantly increasing. Well, the reason is that even if someone does something wrong, i.e., performs an action which is not accepted by the society, at some subconscious level, they have a justification for their actions. They have convinced themselves of the righteousness of their deeds, thus eliminating conflicting thoughts in their brains. A thief doesn't think that he is wrong; he would probably tell you how he was left with no choice other than stealing

Autumn 2016 what didn’t belong to him, and this rationalization is what lets him sleep at night.

The Punisher, a prominent character appearing in the world of Marvel Comics, is driven by the idea of killing gangsters and murderers. He thinks that it is the only way of getting justice done. The Punisher could be a hero to some and a serial killer to others but what kind of a person is he to himself? The answer is that he found a way to deal with the conflicting thoughts that he might have had, and now he doesn’t think of simply killing the criminals as a brutal act. His mind works the same way as a burglar's does- he has convinced himself into believing that killing is the only choice he has, and thus, there remains no overall inconsistency in his thoughts.

This phenomenon is apparent in fictional and real-life vigilantes and criminals, but it is also true for a normal human being making trivial decisions everyday. Ever remember explaining to yourself why you weren't able to perform according to your expectations in the exams? You kept telling yourself that the circumstances didn't allow you to perform well or that the professor wasn't good enough or how well you could have performed if you had an extra day to prepare. How about the time when you got admitted into a college you did not aim for? Did you not convince yourself that your college is the best? All these examples demonstrate that we try to rationalise our behaviour and actions.

Rationalization could be a very serious issue, in a way that it could have two possible outcomes.

How does it actually take place? Initially, we have a belief and if we are subjected to something that contradicts this belief, we have two choices. The first is to discard or overlook the new information, and keep our existing beliefs. The second option is to accept the new information and try to reconstruct a new paradigm or a theory which is consistent with the data. Since the second choice is difficult, involving changes to our whole belief system, we tend to overlook the information that disconfirms our pre-existing beliefs, thus leading to the development of confirmation bias and finally leading to irrationality. Once a belief is formed it becomes very hard to change it. We start looking at circumstances only as we want them to be, thus holding an unvarying worldview. Imagine the following case- a religious institute that believes people could be saved through prayers.

17 We now introduce five people who are suffering from some terminal disease. The priest that works there, ‘treats’ them with prayers but unfortunately three of them die. Since they have a strong belief in prayers, they are not easily going to accept the fact that three people died because prayers don't work. They would somehow try to explain it and end up with logically inconsistent conclusions like 'God works in mysterious ways' or 'they were destined to die'. This may sound irrational to some but to those who believe in the power of prayers, this seems obvious.

Cognitive dissonance is the brain’s way of keeping us sane. It is a natural process by which our brain filters most of the unnecessary conflicts that occur on a daily basis, thus creating a world with certain illusions. It becomes impossible to break every illusion that we have.

Practically speaking, the illusions that we live in are the reasons we feel safe and happy, and contradicting evidence causes tension. In the words of Arthur Koestler, "Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion." Why then do most people aspire to obtain the state of reality and find the truth? It is because they love the idea of seeking the truth. Humans are curious beings and they like to dwell on the details of a mystery.

They love the thrill of discovering the truth and finding out the solution to complex problems.

The feeling of knowing the truth gives them satisfaction. But isn't that an illusion in itself?

The truth is, there is no truth, just perception. Oh, the Irony!

18

Geek Gazette

the rise of

E-SPORTS Y

ou can make some serious money playing video games. And we don’t mean it in terms of pulling off gimmicks like item-selling or gold-farming or emptying the pockets of your rich friends that bank on your geek cred and awesomeness. There are gamers worldwide that make up to six figures a year just by winning tournaments. Consider this DotA 2, a multiplayer video game managed to generate a staggering 20 million USD for its annual tournament, the International. This was not done through major sponsorships and ad revenue, but through crowdfunding. That is, players clicking on their mouses and keyboards made more than 20 million USD pooled in by the people who watched them play. It may sound absurd but one has to acknowledge the fact that eSports are the next big thing.

A lot of eyebrows must have risen at the word ‘eSports’. It is not just a fancy word for video games. The kind of video games that are being played professionally today require a similar set of skills as traditional sports. In addition to quick reaction times and dexterity of fingers, most of the games need complex strategizing and decision-making. The amount of dedication and commitment put in by the players of these eSports is definitely at par with, if not greater than, what goes into other professional sports.

Gradually, the efforts and skills of eSports players are being acknowledged by governments and people alike. The P1 visa, which is reserved for accomplished athletes coming into the US, is

now open for players of major eSports as well. A few universities have started providing scholarships to professional eSports players.

South Korea has accepted eSports with open arms. Professional players enjoy a celebrity status there. Koreans take pride in their country’s position as a pro-gaming powerhouse, the results of which are clearly visible. There are dedicated TV channels that broadcast eSports tournaments and shows. Major tech companies sponsor these ‘cyberathletes’ (as they are called in Korea). They enjoy the same privileges as other athletes. The Korean government has shown its support for this revolution. In fact, the world’s first eSports stadium was built in Korea in 2005. Moreover, there is a separate department in the government focusing solely on the governing of eSports, namely, the Korean e-Sports Association (KeSPA). These steps have provided great dividends to the Government too, with eSports being the major contributor in the GDP of the country pulling in more than five billion USD. The three most popular gamesLeague of Legends, DotA 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive- boast of a base of more than 20 million unique players among themselves.

Another interesting fact about eSports is that a lot of people involved in them don’t actually play the games but rather spectate the professional players playing them. A great chunk of revenue generation for eSports is through the spectators. eSports are on track to compete with football, basketball, etc. as the most famous spectator sports. With over 40,000 people watching it in

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Europe

$269

North America

million

$275

Asia

$328 million

million

Rest of the world

$19

Worldwide eSports revenues by region 2016E

the stadium and more than 36 million tuning in live from homes through streaming services, League of Legends surpassed the viewership of the NBA Finals this year.

The success of eSports as a spectator sport can be attributed to many factors. Sports like cricket, football, etc., were historically developed to be fun to play, rather than being fun to watch.

Watching 13 people on a green field hit and chase a small ball for six-seven hours is bound to be boring to some people. Video games, on the other hand, provide a much more immersive experience and are way more visually stimulating.

Streaming platforms like Twitch and Hitbox, host a large number of professional gamers who stream their gameplay to thousands of viewers.

The kind of money that is being put into eSports and the limelight it enjoys nowadays, has made it a lucrative career option for a lot of teenagers.

Parents of the gamers are becoming more accepting especially in the South East Asian countries. eSports enjoys the same cult and glamour in SEA countries as cricket does in India.

The teenagers and their wards have idols to look up to, who are doing very well in life thanks to eSports. A huge part of this revolution must be accredited to the very first professional players like hyhy, Dendi and Neo. At the time they started playing and decided to choose their hobby as a paying gig and their sole source of earning a living, there was no one they could look up to. It was a blind path. They took the leap without the security that their efforts will reap

million

dividends. They suffered poor relationships with their families due to their obsession. The way they have been rewarded for their trailblazing risky decisions has been truly amazing and heartwarming.

On these grounds thereof, a new generation of eSports enthusiasts is on the rise. Major organisations such as Evil Geniuses, Team Nolife and Cloud9 gaming are building rosters for different competitive games. Gaming houses, which are sponsored by companies like Redbull, Asus, Lenovo, Alienware, Razer, etc., are being set up all over for these teams. The players live together in these houses, playing more than 10-12 hours a day to develop their mechanical skills, game sense and strategies to defeat their opponents. Living with each other, training and honing their own abilities in each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s company has allowed these players to develop mutual understanding and trust, which in turn improve the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gameplay.

In a society which is increasingly prioritising mental prowess over physical skills, eSports are definitely on track to compete with the biggest of the spectator sports. The competition and the money involved is on an ever-high. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time we accept the stature and potential of this new world. So with a brand new attitude, put on your headphones, pick your favourite teams, stock up on energy drinks, kick back and prepare to be blown away by what this truly wonderful revolution has to offer. And in the end, as we say, GG.

LOCKED IN TIME

Autumn 2016

T

he future holds many secrets from us. These shall reveal themselves only when the right time comes; but what if we wanted to set up our own secrets, that can only be revealed in the future? What if we didn’t want people of today to know?

21 TRANSISTOR COUNT 1,000,000,000 100,000,000 10,,000,000 1,000,000

Rivest, well after the publication of that paper, released a puzzle in 1999, called the “LCS35 Time Capsule Crypto-Puzzle”, as part of the celebrations of the 35th anniversary of MIT’s Laboratory of Computer Science. It describes both the puzzle, and directions to solve it, and says that (even after taking Moore’s law into account), it should take approximately 35 years to solve it. Even with the best supercomputers till date, we have no solution. But how is such a puzzle even designed in the first place?

Computer algorithms, in general, have no real concept of time. This is quite obvious, since the same algorithm might be run on different computers, and one might be faster than the other.

Hence, it is impossible to create an algorithm that takes a certain amount of time on all computers. However, machines are limited in speed by a famous law, attributed to Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor.

This law empirically states that the number of transistors on a chip would double every 18 months. From its conception in 1965, till date, the law has been seen to hold, and is predicted to

100,000 10,000

hold further (though with some deceleration in speed, due to physical constraints). One can easily use this law to predict how fast machines will get with time, and figure out how much computation could be done in the requisite time.

One could then propose to encrypt the message with a “weak” key, that takes a certain amount of time to break and be done with it. However, this has a massive flaw due to the ability for computers to parallelize. Two computers can usually do twice the amount of work that one can. In fact, this is exactly what supercomputers of today use. Additionally, anyone who hasn’t been under a rock for the past decade or so, would have noticed that we now not only have fast processors, but have started to get multi-core processors, which is effectively just fancy talk for being able to do more parallelly.

While parallelization does help for normal day-to-day tasks, and even scientific computing, it spells doom for the technique of using a weak key. Supercomputers just take parallelization to the extreme, but even they suffer from Moore’s law. So, what if the computation needed was made inherently serial in nature? It would not matter how many nodes or machines were thrown at the computation; a single machine would end up doing the same computation in the same amount of time. What if one had to chain a bunch of computations together, such that one depended on the other?

Calculating exponentials of numbers is a known easy problem for the computer. Heck, even a measly calculator can do it. However, repeated exponentiation is a strongly sequential operation. The simplest of this is repeated squaring, and this is exactly what Rivest et al. proposed in their paper. No matter how many

2011

2000

1990

1980

1971

2,300

What if no one needed to be trusted, and one could still know that the message could not be revealed?

This question was first answered by Ronald L. Rivest, Adi Shamir, and David Wagner, in a truly seminal paper titled “Time-lock puzzles and timed-release Crypto”, back in 1996. They proposed a system where, without the use of an escrow agent, one could set up time-lock puzzles — challenges that could not be solved until a certain amount of time had passed, even if one had the most powerful supercomputers hammering away at it. Many people earlier had tried to see if this was indeed possible, but the only solution they could come up with, until that point, was “give the message to a trusted person, and don’t let them reveal it until time passes”.

Seems simple, doesn’t it? However, herein lies the notion of trust. Such a system requires a bsolute trust in the escrow agent, and they must not reveal the message at any point before the requisite time. This fails to take into account situations of legal power, or illegal duress. What if no one needed to be trusted, and one could still know that the message could not be revealed?

22

Geek Gazette two primes; but without knowing those exact primes, they are almost impossible to factorize.

In fact, this property is used in the widely deployed RSA cryptosystem, that is used everywhere in today’s world, including credit card transactions, web site authentication, and more. (Not so) coincidentally, RSA stands for Rivest-Shamir-Adleman, who designed the cryptosystem in 1977.

resources you threw at this problem, it would be impossible to quickly do repeated squarings in specifically chosen finite fields. Some of the best scientists and mathematicians in the world have tried this problem for decades, and the consensus is that no faster general method than the obvious method exists.

One can thus, easily set up a puzzle to be t “Calculate 22 (mod n)” for specific values of t and n such that the problem takes as long as one wants it to. Yet, no message has been hidden in this. We still need to find a way to hide the message. The technique used to do this is to use a “trapdoor” that exists in this problem.

The trapdoor designed into the aforementioned puzzle is that of using Euler’s totient function, which for a semiprime n=p×q is Ф(n)=(p-1)×(q-1).

One only needs to reduce the 2t exponential, modulo Ф(n) to be able to quickly calculate the expected result. This result then, is used as a key for a strong cryptosystem (such as AES), and the factorization of n can then be forgotten.

A trapdoor is a shortcut that allows one to efficiently solve the problem. If one could do that, then it would be possible to set up the answer to be a key to an encrypted message. Once the message was encrypted, the key could be destroyed, thereby creating the perfect time-lock. However, wouldn’t a trapdoor mean that the computation could be calculated quickly? It turns out, that if the prime factorization of n is known in the above puzzle, then the solution can be found very quickly.

However, if the factorization is not known, then it is many many orders of magnitude more difficult. Additionally, factorizing a semiprime is a known hard problem. Semiprimes can be constructed very trivially, just by multiplying

1. Every clock in the movie Pulp Fiction is set to 4: _____

This system of storing information into the future, is not just a mathematical curiosity. It has very strong connections into the fundamental nature of our universe itself. What makes the puzzle so difficult, the moment one (retrievable) piece of information is destroyed? Does this mean that there exist different levels of “complete knowledge” of any system? Are there trade-offs in how much is known at the moment, and how much can be known in some time?

Scientists and mathematicians continue to tackle such problems. Maybe 42 does indeed contain all the secrets!

cROSSWORD

2. The world's most accurate atomic clock works on the movement of _____ (down) ions, however, the SI definition of second is based on the ground state of _____(across) 133 atoms.

3. Shane Carruth's famous 2004 thriller on time travel-_____ (down)

7,3

2

1

4

4. The indeterminate time of a event of significance _____ 5. The smallest unit of time is the ____ time.

6. Name of the time machine in the Doctor Who series-___ 7. Guess the band—‘The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say’ (across)

5

2

6

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24

Geek Gazette

fiction

mĂśbius trip G

oosebumps shoot throughout his body, as he realizes he can finally test his theory. A feeling that something's not right lures in the back of his mind, but he decides to ignore it. It is time now.

60 years ago.

It was a cold gloomy morning. A lone man stood on a leaf splattered road, staring off into the distance, waiting patiently for glasses. A rusty old pocket watch dangled around his neck. The old man had many wrinkles on his face, it looked as if each could tell a story of its own. He sat with a stiff posture and was busy observing the surroundings with intent eyes. There was something about the strangerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personality that seemed to unnerve the man.

The man cleared his throat, but that didn't

manage to grab the stranger's attention. In a rather pompous tone, the man then began, "Hello! For the next two hours, we have nothing but each other for company.

After that, we are never going to cross paths. Or at least, I hope not. So let me tell you a tale, which no one is supposed to hear? That is, if you are interested. I won't demand anything in return." The elderly man dubiously raised an eyebrow, which he took as a cue to continue with his story.

"I am going to kill my grandparents." The old manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes widened at the revelation, but there was some artificiality in it, as if he had anticipated that information. Laughing at his reaction, the man continued, "Let me explain. I am a man of science and this is an experiment being conducted to understand the mysterious way in which our universe

Autumn 2016 works and how to predict the various outcomes.

During my research, I managed to tread upon a little secret of the universe, the secret of time.”

As if almost instinctively, the elderly man replied in a taunting tone, "Oh! And what would this little secret of time be?" "That is a rather sensitive piece of information, which is difficult to contemplate and also, I’d like to be the only person with its possession,” replied the man.

“The amount of chaos that would occur, if this secret gets out, is not even sizable. However, I can tell you that after achieving this knowledge, I successfully managed to build a machine which helps me travel through time."

"I know I won't get a proper explanation if I try to question the authenticity of your story, and hence I wouldn't even try. So assume that you have convinced me to believe your claim of understanding the mysterious way in which time works and how you are supposed to be a 'time traveller’. Notwithstanding, how is this even connected to killing your grandparents?", the elderly man exclaimed, irritably.

25 possible, but the unforeseen change in the old man’s behavior managed to slightly push him over the edge. He was shaken and surprised by the fact that his companion had him, a time traveller, feel like a deer in front of the headlights.

The old man stood up and began moving to the front of the bus. There was something about his gait that made the time traveller feel insecure.

Ignoring all the questions being thrown in his direction, he slowly took out the pocket watch.

Golden needles of the old, rusty watch were reflected in the dark abyss of his eyes. They looked as if they have seen the past, the present and the future. The needles suddenly started ticking backwards, and the time traveller’s anxiety increased with every second lost. His vision blurred and he started feeling dizzy, as if the world was spinning around in circles.

An instant later: Goosebumps shoot th�oughout his body, as he �ealizes that he can finally test his theo��. A �eeling that something's not right lu�es in the back o� his mind, but he decides to igno�e it. It is time now.

"Yes, I was coming to that. So, I started exploiting my newly gained ability to quite an extent. I discovered that I was the reason why man came across fire. I have travelled and tread upon every land a person possibly could. I fought for the Allies in the Great War, I studied the behavioural patterns of Neanderthals. The only theory left to test is what would happen if I killed my grandfather, before my father was even conceived? So I time travelled to this era, trying to challenge my own existence", said the man.

There was a sudden change in the old man’s demeanor, as if this seemed to infuriate him. A long silence held the air, as he scratched his beard. After what seemed like forever, the old man replied in a soft eerie tone, "How foolish could you be? To mess with the laws of the universe is not a smart decision. I wanted to be considerate and hear your side of the story, before I took another step. But to my utter disappointment, it was exactly how I expected it to be. I am afraid, this can't be allowed to occur."

Confusion danced across the man's face as he retorted, "Do you think that you could actually attempt to stop me? What power do you have over me?” He tried to sound as confident as

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26 01

Geek Gazette

soft robotics â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Octobot can act as the forerunner for other similar robots which are expected be more efficient in interacting with nature, perhaps, because they are inspired by nature.â&#x20AC;?

F

rom the mechanical beings discussed in Greek mythology to multi-function humanoid assistants such as ASIMO, robots have lived together with humans for far longer than what we naturally tend to believe. After so many years, robots still remain the favorite toys of technology geeks. The reasons for building them has changed over time; but for their creators, the satisfaction of having built something that portrays the pinnacle of technology has remained constant.

Robots, today, are not limited to being the servants of humans doing their odd jobs for them. They have forged ahead of the typical definitions of machines working tirelessly in factories, or a consumer electronic device cleaning your dishes for you. Also, the time humans spend interacting with robots has risen enormously. With this, robots that respond only through few button presses and perform predefined operations in a suitable environment have become not only primitive but also severely limiting. The robots that the modern man needs must not only be precise and efficient but intelligent and adaptable as well.

Soft robotics is one of the outcomes of the continued efforts to make adaptable robots. Soft robots, a class of biologically inspired robots, are composed of easily deformable materials such as fluids, gels, and elastomers that match the elastic properties of tissues and organs of the living organisms. Octopuses, caterpillars, and

fishes have become the initial motivation for these devices principally due to their versatility and ability to maneuver through unknown terrains. These devices, unlike their traditional counterparts, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t rely on intensive computations and signal processing, in advance, for their motion. Instead, they mold their bodies according to the surroundings.

Building bots with flexible actuators was something that had already been achieved in the past decade. The fundamental problem with these devices, however, was that they needed to be tethered to a hard power supply and control unit. An autonomous operation of the device with entirely soft construction would have been the next big step in converting the alluring possibilities into reality. This was recently achieved in a bot designed at the Harvard Biodesign Lab known as the Octobot. The robot is aptly named after octopus which signifies its wide functionality, adaptability, and flexibility.

The Octobot, contrary to the regular robots, is controlled by microfluidic logic which is a soft analog to the prevalent electronic digital logic.

Micro-fluidic logic is a pneumatic control system that autonomously regulates fluid flow which triggers the catalytic decomposition of a micro-propellant fuel and supplies power to the bot. The initial challenge for building a bot using such a control unit was printing a fluidic circuit which is precise, soft, and portable. This was made possible through a method born out of

Autumn 2016

27

extensive research done on the methods of multi-material 3D printing called embedded 3D printing.

The Octobot can act as the forerunner for other similar robots which are expected be more efficient in interacting with nature, perhaps, because they are inspired by nature. These robots, built from soft deformable materials, will have a clear advantage in holding, moving and manipulating unknown and possibly delicate materials. This, apart from all the other possibilities, will call for safer and more spirited interaction between humans and robots.

Devices such as cardiac compressors for people with heart diseases or motor assistive devices for people with paralyzed limbs, composed of materials which are similar to human tissues, will not be a far-fetched possibility. Moreover, soft robotics could have cataclysmic effects in diverse fields such as disaster management, rescue, terrain maneuvering and even medical surgeries. The technology used in Octobot can also help us in the generation of artificial muscles which, in itself, is a field of ongoing research. A combination of the presently available hard robotics and these soft robotic muscles could lead to the development of true humanoid robots which are similar to humans both structurally and functionally.

These robots can have useful applications in non-conventional fields such as adult care services.

Soft robotics, as a discipline of robotics, is young and blooming. Though the field has a very wide and diverse range of possible applications, a major hindrance is the challenges that are being faced by it. The power that can be generated by these bots is very small as compared to what is possible using hard robots.

Moreover, a more precise and fool-proof control unit is necessary for some applications such as the cardiac compressor, which calls for more research. Another important point to be considered is that this field has only been explored as an academic interest and is yet to make considerable impacts in practical applications.

Although the field of soft robotics is novel in its ideas and implementation, the endeavor which it belongs to is not. People have been building robots for a long time and will continue to do so. If the history of technology repeats itself, where fascinating ideas transform into day-to-day reality, not too far in the future, soft robots will also become a common feature of our lives. The minds of engineers will then be occupied with something entirely outlandish that we probably canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even imagine today!

Illustration showing the working of a micro-fluid logic circuit

28

Geek Gazette

in coversation with

Dr. Gangopadhyay Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering

GG: A majority of students would attend your classes even if you don't take attendance. What is it that you believe maintains such an interest among students?

P: Frankly speaking, I don't know. It depends completely on the students. If you look at the movie industry, some of the people are extremely successful even though they are not such great actors while some others who are amazing actors are not so successful. What I believe is that a good teacher requires a mixture of course content and of non-course content which helps in keeping the students' interest in check.

GG: What are some research topics you are working on currently?

P: I am primarily interested in cryptography.

Specifically, I am into symmetric cryptosystems.

And more specifically I am doing stream and block cipher cryptanalysis. At the same time, I construct boolean functions which are used as primitives in symmetric ciphers. Apart from that, I am trying to work on quantum computation.

GG: Most professors have a large disconnect from their research and their teachings. Why do you believe this is so, especially in IITR? How can we bridge this gap?

P: I think the reason is that in IITs, we don't have a huge faculty panel as compared to some foreign universities thus professors here have to teach diverse subjects and I don't even think of that as a problem. Personally, I would like to teach a variety of subjects, because sometimes that helps in getting new ideas. To the people who are deeply into the research, teaching various subjects helps them in getting ideas that they couldn't have got without teaching those subjects. The reason is that most innovations are very basic in nature and they are able to think apart from the topics that they are researching on.

GG: In research, one needs to be updated with the ongoing contemporary research as well. With the constant stream of new research, how do you manage to keep up to date?

P: I think being updated with new research has become very easy since the outburst of the internet. Today we have got access to all the journals that come out, and with the use of proper keywords we could easily search through them. It is one of the most important tasks that we perform during research, but if you go back to fifteen-twenty years, it used to be a very painful job. We had to look through journals manually and trust me it was a nightmare.

GG: Your work is in theoretical computer science.

In a time when software development and

Autumn 2016 machine learning are buzzwords, what made you choose TCS and how can a student interested in TCS pursue it?

P: First of all, my work is technically not completely theoretical nor is it completely application based, it's somewhere in between. I have always been very comfortable with the theoretical part, it really suits me very well and I am really happy with what I am working on.

Well, for the second part of the question, I believe in diversity. I think that if there are people believing in one thing then there would always be people who would be interested in other things, and maybe that is the reason why people like to attend my lectures.

GG: Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve worked quite a bit on crypto. Do you think the battle between cryptanalysis and cryptography will ever come to an end?

P: No. I don't think that's possible. I think they would always have to work parallelly.

Theoretically, a system could be completely secure, but practically it's not possible. If you are designing a system, you need to think of possible attacks too. So they are the same thing. Another point is the optimality of a system. We often have wrong impression of attacks. If I have an 80-bit key, and I am able to crack it with resources required for just 75-bit key, then this is also an attack and I need to make my system my system optimal. The attack process is there to optimize the system, as it could be used in different devices, leading to power consumption and improved battery life and thus the market. This is how theory translates to market, in a way.

GG: In your opinion, what causes the difference in the culture here, v/s abroad -- causing a placement-hungry crowd here and a research-oriented crowd there? How should students be motivated to pursue research?

P: I think it's very obvious to have such differences as we live in an underdeveloped country. If we consider the ratio in which the students could get into some good university, abroad, is 1/3 meaning that one out of every three students could get admission into a very good university there. This is not the case in India, if you consider the same ratio here, it's extremely low. We aren't able to provide quality education to a huge section of people, thus they are mostly focused towards getting a good job.

29 Even in IITs we have people who have performed extremely good when they were 18 years of age, reflecting the fact that we have a very ambitious pool of people thus it's hard to compel them to get into research. One more thing, doing research is really very painful (laughs).

GG: What do you believe, will be next big breakthrough, in the field of computer science?

What kind of impact will it have on our society?

P: I believe that we would be having enough computational power to predict future. I think once we are through that stage, the idea of randomness would change. At this point we don't have enough technology to compute parameters that seem random to us, but I believe, in future it would become possible and with those technologies, we would be able to predict future.

For example, today we scan individuals on airport to check if they are carrying any explosive or harmful stuff, but with extreme computational powers we could feed in the randomness parameters of the whole aeroplane including the passengers to the system and that system would be able to compute if we would be safe for next 10 minutes in finite time.

GG: The field of CS is a relatively new field, and is hence extremely fast paced. Our course structure doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem to be specifically designed to handle rapid changes. What suggestions do you have to improve this, and make us competitive on the global level?

P: I think that IITR has a really good course structure, and the system is very flexible. The thing that I believe is missing, is the one-one interaction between the faculties and the students. I think there should be a feedback system too, to make it even better.

GG: Any advice for the students of IITR? P: The truth is I don't believe in advising people.

I think people would be better off if they are allowed to do what they are doing.The only advice that I would like to give is, people should not be afraid of following new paths, and I also don't believe in pushing the younger generation into doing what we think is correct, because the newer generation has a completely different thought process, they should do what they think is correct.

30

Geek Gazette

potboiler plunders

W

ith the release of the eighth Harry Potter book, the sudden popularity of Pokémon Go, the noise and fame surrounding the release of the fifth sequel to Pirates of the Carribean, one is left thinking about the big picture. Has geek culture been accepted universally, or are we comfortably living in our own history?

ambiguous.

One of the biggest action films of the summer, Star Trek Beyond, is the third instalment of a multi-million dollar franchise reboot. Marvel and DC movies continue to be released seemingly every few weeks. Netflix released its latest hit, Stranger things which is a horror-mystery series set in the 1980s. It is a tribute to the science fiction cinema of that era- so much so that it boasts of a huge glossary of references. Even though it has a compelling story, it hits the same nerve as a remake does. Apart from that, the comic series He-Man recently premiered the first trailer of its new series after 30 years at the San Diego Comic Con.

So, have we fully embraced our love for dragons, dungeons or Doctor Who in our daily lives? To understand this transition better we must go back to the start. Geek culture has evolved and devolved across eras. Richard Donner’s Superman was the second highest grossing film in 1978. It created a wave of sequels, most of which weren’t well received or even competently made. In 1989, Tim Burton’s Batman redefined what comic book movies could be- funny, exciting and darkly original. Choosing a starting point is a bit arbitrary, but if there had to be one, it may have been Star Wars. In 1977, it broke all previous box office records and changed the way studios looked at these movies. Since then our heroes continue to take movie theatres by storm.

Batman and Robin, in 1997 had killed the Bat franchise after which studios started to experiment with relatively unknown properties like Steel and Blade.

Until a few years back, geeking out over super heroes, comics, and video games was considered as a taboo by many, and stereotyped as weird and wacky. Today, it is apparently the new black. It is considered quirky and eccentric if one plays World of Warcraft or watches Dragon Ball-Z. Never before has the boundary between geek culture and mainstream culture been so

Despite the success they enjoy, superhero movies and the characters in them are sometimes gravely misunderstood. There have been instances when an audience has missed the mark of the story because of lack of knowledge about the characters. The complexities of their relationships and interactions are often misread.

Suicide Squad, the recent release by DC Universe

Autumn 2016 was criticised for sexualisation of Harley Quinn, the psychotic super villain and lover to the Joker.

But she was always a character with prominent focus on her sexuality and one who was proud to be so. To recall, she covers herself in pudding and tries to entice the Joker in the episode “Beware the Creeper” of the animated series. She chooses her lifestyle. Every character is open to interpretation but if someone loves a character, they don’t just love one facet of their being or one style of portrayal. Notwithstanding, Quinn from the movie did lack the edge she always had.

It was probably an attempt at over-sexualising or failing to see the meaning behind it. One can’t say much since the script was written in six weeks.

For a vast majority, comic books and the literary works of Alan Moore began and ended with the movie screenings. This is just a tiny speck of what geek culture is. Geek culture requires depth and scope which is currently missing in the mainstream culture. Thus, there is still a thick and an obvious wall between the two. The release of comic book movies are just a flicker of geek culture, like a light shining briefly through a hole in the wall.

Inevitably, creativity is also being driven out of the mainstream culture and being replaced with safe bets which is why almost every Marvel character now has its own film. Cosplay, cons and comic references determine the cool quotient. Even commercials were built around these geek references as was this article. There are already so many popular geek culture references to be recut, repurposed, or manipulated that we have stopped creating original works. Gimmicks are being used in place of original storytelling. Perhaps we are on such a shaky ground that sticking one’s neck out in terms of creativity is a bad idea. And it’s not just the movie makers that are at fault here. Great original contemporary works of fiction like The Wire and Sopranos do exist but they belong to the previous decade. Most of the original movies that do come out today aren’t good for business.

In the words of Woody Allen, “Nostalgia is denial. The name for this denial is Golden Age thinking.” Not only is nostalgia an inevitable part of our daily lives but also a dynamic tool to create content that influences the audience. It has become a marketing strategy for brands that

31 feed off of the sentimentality that the younger generation has for their favourites 90s shows, video games or fashion. Toyota’s “Fueled by the Future” campaign featuring Michael J.Fox tapped the Back to the Future nostalgia to pitch its fuel-efficient cars.

Well, it’s time that we should consider if we have started building our own cultural production.

There may be a long time before the big production houses take a leap of faith, and produce works that are based on new, contemporary ideas. But, one cannot entirely disagree that original content exists. It exists in Reddit comments and on brilliantly executed webcomics. It finds its way in the words of stand-up comedians who raise issues more subtly and articulately than the meanest of open letters. It etches itself in our ears through that one part of that one song that went unaired on the radios. There is more original content on the internet than ever. It is a never ending wave that only finds more height. It is easy to get misled by hashtags, news feeds and search results that don’t just depend on your taste.

As geeks, it is our duty to scour through the dust in hopes of finding the treasure chest. It is and must be our motive to not let our tastes be guided by billboards. And if you are at a loss for motivation, just imagine the warm fuzzy feeling in your old heart when you listen to a song only you know the lyrics to while the world is still obsessed with the 90s.

Woody Allen

32

Geek Gazette

IN THE HEART OF A RELATIVIST “Once I learned the vocabulary and grammar, I was blown away by what I could do. And so began my lifelong love affair with general relativity.”

underlying connection between light and gravity -- maybe some sort of an equivalence between the two? As it always is about any theory of Science, one can’t really say what is the true or

- Pedro G. Ferreira

ultimate nature of a theory of Physics but an analysis of how the theory has been explored so far and what this analysis suggests it to be a

F

rom the time of Aristotle to Einstein, the

theory of is always of great interest to a science

true path of an apple falling from a tree has

lover.

always been a pensive question. And even introspective is the thought of whether the Earth

It is indisputable that the special theory and the

fell onto the apple or the apple onto the Earth

general theory have a very intimate relationship

with a little subconscious look-see as to what

with 'light' and 'gravity' respectively. It is

told the either of them to do so. Out of such

interesting to ask whether the intimateness of

seemingly metaphysical questions has grown the

this relationship is fundamentally inevitable or

Theory of Relativity. Often considered to be the

not.

most beautiful and elegant theory- not only because of the mathematical delight it has to

Being a theory of Physics and not of abstract

offer but also owing to the allure of the physical

Mathematics, the theory of relativity does

axioms it imbibes, it is perhaps the only theory

require some experimental grounds on which it

that has been the most loved entity of the

can state something about its ingredients.

universe, at least once, by almost each and every

Historically,

physics enthusiast born after the 1950s.

ingredients,

the in

a

statements

about

these

restricted

domain,

were

exhaustively determined by the experiments on The most common words thrown around while

light

-

or

rather

by

the

experiments

of

talking about the theory of relativity are light

electrodynamics. Similarly, in the complete

and gravity. It’s often said about Special

domain of these concepts, this experimental

Relativity that it is a theory of light. Similarly, for

base was formed with the aid of experiments

General Relativity, it is almost always said that it

related to gravity. But with an advent in

is a theory of gravity. The question arises that

technology, one can replace some of the basic

when we think of the theory of relativity, as a

experiments that go into the derivation of the

whole -- What is it a theory of? Is it a theory of

results of the theory with some other equivalent

light? Or is it a theory of gravity? Or can one only

experiments. One can then prepare a completely

say that the special theory is a theory of light

delightful treatise on the theory of relativity- in

whereas the general theory is a theory of gravity?

such a way that it conveys, in no way, any

Or can one even go all the way to establish an

impression to the reader that the theory of

Autumn 2016

33

relativity is a theory of either light or gravity.

Surely it has to say many important things about them but it is not originally a theory of any of them.

The reason has to do with the fact that fundamentally, the theory of relativity is a theory of motion. It is a theory of motion not in the sense that it attempts to find out how things move the way they move, but in the sense that it tries to describe something about the motion itself. Consequently, it concerns itself with the question of what our understanding of that aspect of motion implies, in generality, about the laws that try to describe the motion of different entities or rather about every law that has to do

Ernst Mach

at least something with the concept of motion.

- One of the most insightful relativists

Its primitive scope is to state about the concept of motion itself and the constituents that go into

non-trivial predictions about physical situations

the notion of motion. But as long as any other

and

aspect of Physics is entangled with these

experiments.

constituents no matter how remotely- the

extremely interesting jobs for a Relativist is to

theory of relativity has something definite to

modify them to fit the principle of relativity and

state about it.

verify

they

must

the

be

verified

in

subsequent

So the most probable of the

predictions

made

by

such

modifications. A rather inconceivable situation Relativists have this belief that they will, most

would be that the ingredients of the concept of

probably, always be able to fit the laws of physics

motion are truly needed to be so skewed that the

into a framework consistent with the principle of

essence of the foundation of the principle of

relativity. The reason essentially lies in the fact

relativity makes no sense. For a true scientific

that the postulate of the principle of relativity is

Relativist, it would be required to abandon the

founded on a very profound axiom. The axiom

principle of relativity and formulate the theory of

that the kinematical definition of motion, in its

motion accordingly and be happy about it.

very essence, makes no distinction between the two observers in relative motion and thus, no law

In the heart of a Relativist of our generation, the

of Physics should be formed in a way that it tries

place of light and gravity will always remain like

to

which

the place of those strangers in the heart of a

contradicting the symmetry inherited in the

person whom they would have helped find his

definition of motion would be inevitable. This

lost lover, completely selflessly, even when their

statement hasn't been found to be false but our

own loved ones were missing.

conceptions about the ingredients of the notion

appreciate the situation of the Relativist, it

of motion itself have been found to be myopic

should be known that the person hadn't really

more than once.

hesitated in seeking the help, in the hope (or

introduce

this

distinction

for

In order to

rather belief) that he would find their loved ones 'Being a Relativist' is an eternal enterprise.

once he finds his own. But sadly, the hope turned

Relativists always want to investigate whether or

out to be futile. Even after having a complete

not every newly found law of Physics satisfies

theory of relativity, we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have satisfactory

the principle of relativity or not. If some

answers to the ultimate nature of light and

experiments truly suggest otherwise then the

gravity! Any theory of gravity that follows the

chances are that they need to improve the theory

principle of relativity is acceptable to the theory

of motion and possibly, the theory of its

of relativity, but surely nature only works with

constituents as well to maintain the principle of

one of them. We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know for sure which one it

relativity. This should yield definite and

is!

The Relief of In-consequence A

A Serious Man 2009 Genre: Drama/Comedy Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg Richard Kind Sari Lennick IMDb rating: 7/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

long time ago, a man used to have a certain dream every night, he woke up every morning thinking about the dream and its possible meaning for his life. The recurrence of the dream and its sheer crypticism led him to believe that it must have some divine significance. He was sure that some higher being was trying to communicate to him the meaning of life and explain to him the mysteries of his existence and tell him the purpose of his being alive. Determined to do mankind a favor and bring some excitement to his life the man packed his bags and went to a gypsy to get his dreams interpreted. The gypsy of Romani origin heard him gloat about the dream and how a man with a white beard talked to him in some strange language. By the time the narration ended, the gypsy was sure that this man was of some divine stature. He told the man that he must travel to the peak of a nearby hill and that with little meditation he was sure to find out the meaning of life and the purpose of human existence.

Carrying the weight of human anticipation the man went on his expedition, a few weeks later while walking through the wilderness, the man stepped on a bear trap, lost his leg, got infected and died horribly.

The search for the meaning of life has aroused much scientific, theological, philosophical and metaphysical speculation since time immemorial. One may stop to think at some point or another the purpose of this venture, as in why are we so adamant to find out the answer to the above question when we are aware, that in

the process of doing so we have managed to invent a plethora of beliefs and notions that so strongly affect the lives of the entire species irrespective of an individual's personal acceptance or rejection of that idea. A very obvious byproduct of this collective need of mankind stems from our desire to assign higher cosmic significance to every event that affects our life. Our desire to interpret our sufferings and to cite the inscrutability of godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plan when we fail to do so, results in its circular analysis. We as people, want to define life to be a set of equations, fixed upon set points and when these come undone which unforeseen circumstances are always threatening to do, the result is so heartbreaking that it forces us to believe that it was something higher that wished that to happen for our own good.

Coen brotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parable of Larry Gopnik explores this theme beautifully. In the wonderfully crafted movie A Serious Man, Larry undergoes a series of misfortunes and during the entirety wants to understand what has he done to deserve this fate. During the film Larry tries to orient himself by seeking counsel from different Rabbis. Though the film clearly hints towards the absence of a definitive aim and the cause of Larryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sufferings, the protagonist remains unaware throughout. The coen brothers masterfully show that the truth of our lives is devastatingly simple- there is no higher being, there is no objective or purpose for us. This idea while inciting a feeling of utter disappointment is also very oddly relieving.

Into a Limbo with Albert “There was a young lady named Bright Whose speed was much faster than light.

She went off one day In a relative way, And returned on the previous night.”

- A. H. Reginald Buller

I

s there any more reality to Stephen Hawking than to Beethoven? Or is there any more reality to Albert Einstein than to the streaming of the final season of Game of Thrones? Is it time that changes what is real? If so, where does time itself stand in this picture of reality? Or is it that time is an illusion emerging out of the grand arrangement of a cosmic reality of which the human consciousness can only perceive an incomplete picture? If there were no objects, then would time cease to exist? And if so, then do the objects make up time? Where does light stand in this confusing world that we don’t understand it despite the fact that it is the most familiar thing to us! Dictated to always travel at the same speed by James, does light somehow portray an edge at which the space and time meet?

Alan Lightman’s modern classic, Einstein’s Dreams, questions the root of reality through a series of thirty dated interpretations of time. Set in the year 1905, Lightman fictionalizes Albert Einstein as a young scientist who is working as a patent clerk in Switzerland. He is reaching the culmination of his deep investigation on the nature of time, space, and the electrodynamic theory of Maxwell. The dated interpretations are

set between 14th April, 1905 to 28th June, 1905, and are a collection of Lightman’s incredible imagination. Represented as what Albert dreamt during his troubled times of his research on Relativity, the author gives a basis to the level of abstraction that would have been fed to the concept of time in the Special Theory of Relativity, thus glorifying 1905, the year Albert had published his paper on the same.

Each dream has a story - an abstract and radical pondering on the very nature of time. Thoughts in the dream are highly interwoven with the people living in Switzerland and their interactions with each other. The inevitable dependence of these interactions with the nature of time in that dream starts appearing as a question on our conception time itself rather than a question of psychology or sociology.

However absurd each story may seem, the idea in each story is so simple and elegant that it seems true- “Each time is true, but the truth is not the same”.

Although the stories are imaginary, they have philosophical connections with our real world.

Lightman questions and makes the reader rethink the very basis of fundamental constructs that constitute our experiences. A celebrated novel amongst physicists and others, Einstein's Dreams is a timeless classic that has something to be pondered upon by every curious mind.

Einstein’s Dreams 1992 Author: Alan Lightman Goodreads: 4.1/5 Barnes & Noble: 4.4/5

36

Geek Gazette

translating LAnguages A

language is a combination of alphabets arranged according to some grammar in a proper syntactical structure. Noam Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics, described language as a set of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.

Traditionally, a means of constructing thoughts and feelings, language is now understood as a means of communication. The power of language is recognized by the linguistic philosophy, which states that “solutions to philosophical problems can be found by reformation of language or by a deeper and better comprehension of the language.”

Among languages, there are natural languages which we acquire with time, like English and there are formal languages which we intentionally construct. Formal languages include mathematical symbols, symbols and representations of chemicals, and also programming languages. Just like the human brain is capable of understanding natural language, computers understand a formal language with a set grammar. When humans need to communicate with computers, there needs to be a transition between natural and formal language. Natural language processing, or NLP, becomes a bridge to this gap. NLP involves the use of signal processing, syntactic analysis, semantic analysis and pragmatics of language to achieve this aim. In simpler terms, signal processing involves converting spoken words into written, syntactic analysis deals with the structure of the language, semantic analysis with the meaning of words and sentences and pragmatics with the actual meaning of the sentence, taking in account its context.

Natural language processing has made huge advances from its birth in 1950s. Starting with an era of pure machine translation and moving to

an AI-based phase followed by a phase stressing on grammar and logic, to a phase of importance for lexical and corpus data, NLP has made a significant progress. Despite this, there are still various “NLP-hard” problems like summarization of text which are difficult to solve currently. But what would happen if each of us decided to choose one formal language and communicate in it? Wouldn’t the communication between two people and between a person and a machine be so much more easier? There would, effectively, be no need of NLP. There would be no scope of miscommunication or misinterpretation. Even if the speaker or writer wanted to use ambiguity in their words, there could be constructs for inserting ambiguity in the new formal language. It is a general consensus that natural languages are unsuitable for putting across many ideas which artificial languages could with correctness and mathematical rigour.

A magazine paper titled "Knowledge representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence", published independently by Rick Briggs, a researcher at NASA, tries to demonstrate that a natural language (Sanskrit) can serve as a formal or artificial language. In this paper, Briggs proves that the sentence analysis done to understand, or more aptly, “decipher” Sanskrit is similar to the way computer analysis of an artificial language is done. It was only in the 200 BCs when Panini formalised Sanskrit and provided fixed rules for its grammar that this became possible. Till then, Sanskrit too had a similar form as other natural languages today. Nonetheless, believing that Sanskrit could be used as a language to write computer programs in is similar to believing that humans could talk in the language of mathematic - possible, but infeasible.

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